He Damned Himself
by Anticipating Boxes
Summary: AU. Dean is a catholic priest, a good man. Castiel is a normal young boy who just moved to Lawrence with his parents, but behind innocent blue eyes he hides a dangerous secret and a terrible agenda. This is the recipe for the end of the world.
1. Chapter 1

**Notes**: Initially this began as a response to a prompt on the Supernatural Kink Meme... then it got stuck in my head and morphed into something else (as my stories usually do). The initial prompt was that priest!Dean takes advantage of choirboy!Castiel.

Clearly my muse decided that it should be the other way around.

**Warnings**: Paedophilia – 12 year old boy/30+ years old man. If this squicks you, "consensual" or not, just hit the back button right now.

**He Damned Himself (and then He Damned Everyone)**

-

* * *

It's in the aftermath that Dean begins to think that maybe he's going to hell.

Of course he'd known it was wrong. Intellectually, he'd known, without any doubts or questions, that what he was doing was wrong. Could get him excommunicated. But the lure of those lips, the beautiful spark in those eyes when the boy smiled just for him, had blinded him to the consequences.

He'd said 'damn it' and damned himself.

Dean had been a practicing priest for only four years before he ever saw the boy - Castiel, a newcomer named (so appropriately) after an angel, coming to church for the first time with parents who had just moved from up north. Castiel was twelve at the time, solemn, and Dean had been hard pressed to keep his eyes off the boy while greeting the parents. Dean had spoken briefly about the history of the church, and then about the youth activities they offered. Casual, careful not to let on just how interested he would be in seeing the boy join the youth group or the basketball league.

Six months later Castiel joined the choir and Dean got the feeling that someone, somewhere was testing him.

Castiel looked like the angel of his namesake in the plain white robes that formed the choir uniform. His voice was lower than most boys his age, hinting that either his voice had broken early or that he would one day possess the kind of bone-shaking baritone that could make women melt at twenty paces. Castiel sang with perfect pitch and intonation, easily the best singer out of the sixteen other boys who made up the small choir.

He always sang looking straight at Dean, at the priest's face and not the lyric book.

Dean encouraged it. He told himself it was innocent, that he smiled and winked at the boy because it was encouragement, because he wanted Castiel to know that Dean had noticed how well he sang. It was less easy to pass off the subtle touches to the boy's shoulder and back as he passed by. And even less so when Castiel started staying back a few minutes after every practice - not to talk, not to touch, just to smile at him and stare at Dean with those too-knowing eyes.

As if he knew Dean's secret. As if he were saying it was ok.

Dean had only been a practicing priest for four and a half years when he said 'damn it' and threw it all away. When he consciously waited for the other boys to leave after choir practice on Saturday and approached the boy for the first time. Dean had leaned down, a hand cupping the boy's face, and pressed his lips against Castiel's. His first kiss since he had entered the seminary and it was with a twelve year old boy.

But Castiel hadn't pulled away. He had let Dean kiss him and smiled afterwards. And for a few days afterwards Dean had almost expected to receive an angry phone call - from the boy's parents, from the cardinal, from someone.

When nothing happened it was just that much easier to kiss the boy again. To slide his hand up under that choirboy uniform and touch him, petting through Castiel's clothes until the boy's face was flushed red, lips pink and wet and open as he panted softly against Dean's chest.

Dean didn't think too much about it after that, except in anticipation. He imagined the boy feeling the same way, saw the flash of something heated in Castiel's eyes when he sang with eyes still trained firmly on the priest's face. Dean touched himself thinking about the boy, imagining Castiel's body beneath his or the boy's beautiful lips stretched tight around his cock. He prayed less and less, and always forgot to ask for forgiveness.

The next Saturday that came Dean waited for the other boys to leave. He waited for Castiel to give him that secretive smile before he pulled the boy into his office. And this time his hands made their way under Castiel's clothes. He touched the boy's skin, kissed his mouth until it was swollen and red, wrapped his hand around the boy's cock and fondled him until the boy spurted hot and wet against Dean's hand.

He drove to the next town over to buy lube, dressed in the jeans and a t-shirt he hadn't worn for years. He put it in his desk drawer and told himself that he didn't ever have to use it. That it was there just in case, that he wouldn't take advantage...

Saturday after practice, his cock wrapped in the tight, hot heat of Castiel's body, the boy bent down over Dean's desk, the priest would admit to a silent inevitability.

Now he sits back in his chair, pants still open and stained with semen - his and the boy's - and realises what has been lost here. "I'm sorry," Dean says, broken and wrecked as he raises both hands to cover his face. "I'm so sorry. God - please forgive me."

"It's too late for apologies, Dean."

The priest looks through the cracks in his fingers to watch as Castiel buttons up his crisp white shirt again. For a moment it doesn't quite register that the boy had spoken. "What?"

Castiel turns and smiles at him, looking just as angelic as ever. "Dean, please. You just fucked a twelve year old in a church, it's a little late for pathos." Then boy reaches up and pries Dean's hands away from his face. Leans in and kisses Dean's lips. "Yes, Dean," he says calmly. "You're going to hell now. And if anyone finds out you'll be excommunicated and jailed."

"Oh Christ." Dean chokes, staring at the boy's face.

The boy just keeps smiling, nimble fingers tucking Dean back into his pants and doing up the fly. "But if you love me you won't tell anyone. You won't go crying to the authorities like a whiny little baby. You'll pack up your things, and come with me, and we'll go far, far away to a place where you can do whatever you want. I'll be twelve for you forever," Castiel says, and for just a moment Dean would swear that the boy's eyes snap to an inky black. "There's just one, tiny little catch..."

Strangely numb, Dean stares at the boy. "What's that?"

"You go to Hell when you die," Castiel tells him, taking one of Dean's hands in his own and leaning close until their lips are almost touching, "and when you get there... you say 'yes'." When Castiel pulls away again he looks sweet and young, and terrified that Dean is going to say no. "Please, father?"

This time he said it aloud. "Damn it." Dean leaned forward and kissed the boy. And damned himself.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean never officially left the priesthood. He stayed long enough to arrange his replacement, making excuses and dodging questions until he was exhausted with it. Castiel was a godsend during those times when Dean was bone-weary and not sure how he was going to dodge the next concerned question. The boy would climb onto Dean's lap and slide his arms around Dean's neck, would smile at him with his sweet smile and everything would be ok.

"Why is it important that I remain a priest?" Dean asked, petting Castiel's hair and holding the boy close; The contact innocent and loving as if he hadn't just had his cock buried deep in the boy's body just minutes before.

Castiel smiled at him, almost a pitying smile, like he knew something that Dean didn't know. "It's just important," he replied. "It'd make me happy. You want to make me happy don't you, father?"

Dean should hate how hearing Castiel call him 'father' sets low hum of arousal churning in his stomach. He has the feeling that he's entered a contract with a demon, but with Castiel's small, smooth hands against his face he can't find it in himself to care.

He leaves in the dead of the night only two days after his replacement arrives. He gets into his car and finds Castiel already waiting for him in the back seat, sitting beside an already-packed bag and yawning prettily behind a hand. Dean tells himself it's not kidnapping if the boy wants to go. He tells himself that the lube in the glove box is only there because he forgot to take it out when he bought it.

He drives all night and stops only when he can't keep his eyes open any longer, pulls into a rest stop and naps in the front seat. He wakes with Castiel curled up on the seat beside him, the boy's head in his lap and his big blue eyes staring up at him. Dean smiles down at the boy and brushes hair from Castiel's forehead.

"I am doing the right thing," he says to himself, not at all convinced.

"Can we get icecream?" Castiel asks innocently. And then in the exact same tone; "Can I suck your cock?"

"Yes," Dean says, practicing for the rest of his eternal damnation. "God. Yes."

Castiel opens Dean's pants right there, smooths cherry-flavoured lube over him and sucks him down as far as he can as if Dean's cock is a treat so delicious that he just has to have it all. The priest watches him, marvelling at Castiel's raw beauty in the morning sunlight. At the same time scared to death that anyone could walk past the car at any moment and see them.

Dean finds himself a job in a large town and rents a motel room for two weeks before he can find a house. Castiel is the one who suggests school, who suggests that he enrol with Dean's last name so things don't look suspicious. The boy calls him 'father' when they're in public, it's so easy to let people assume.

There are two beds in the house but Castiel sleeps in the master bedroom with him, his smaller, lithe and youthful body pressed against Dean's chest or side or back. Just like the other bed in the other bedroom, the boy's pyjamas are only to fit other people's perceptions. He never sleeps in them, instead wearing one of Dean's t-shirts - ridiculously large and beautiful on him.

"We can't stay here for more than a year," Castiel tells him in bed one night.

"Why not?" Dean asks, familiar enough with the boy's too-intelligent, too-adult ways of thinking that he doesn't question the statement itself.

Castiel rolls onto his side so he's facing Dean, eyes glinting just a little in the light from the digital clock on the nightstand. "I promised you I wouldn't grow up," the boy replies, taking Dean's hand and putting it on his body. "Sooner or later someone will notice. That's the price you have to pay, Dean. Either I grow up or we move, which one do you want?"

Dean thinks about it for a moment. He feels sick and guilty, chases away the feeling when he thinks about Castiel's body under his. "We'll move," he agrees finally, and doesn't question why he believes that the boy wont age. "We'll move wherever you want to, baby."

The boy smiles at him and Dean's heart breaks just a little more. He wants to touch, to taste, and he rubs his hands over Castiel's body, mouths at his skin and touches him until the boy is coming against Dean's stomach and they're both sticky with sweat and semen.

A few months later he gets a phone call on his cell, asking if he knows anything about Castiel's disappearance. Dean lies, looking right at the boy, and says he hadn't seen Castiel since the very last choir practice that he'd overseen. He lies again when he's asked where he is. And again when he says he'll call straight away if he ever does hear news about the boy's whereabouts.

"I can make them stop looking forever," Castiel tells him as soon as the call was over. "I can make it as if I never existed. Do you want me to? Do you want me to be with you forever, Dean?"

"I love you," Dean answers, placing a solemn kiss to the top of Castiel's head.

"Then I'll make them stop looking."

That night Dean wakes up to find that Castiel is crying, curled up into a ball on the other side of the bed. Dean touches the boy's shoulder, tries to soothe him with soft words and kisses and receives tearful pleas in response. The boy begs him to let him go home, to stop touching him, tells him that he'll never tell anyone what Dean did if he'll just take him back home.

The priest turns away. This isn't the Castiel he knows, with the slow and beautiful smiles. He leaves the bedroom and locks the boy in, returns only after two cups of tea and ignores the curled-up body already in the bed. When Dean wakes up in the morning Castiel is pressed against him again, acting as if nothing unusual had happened.

"I'm all yours now, Dean," Castiel tells him, solemn blue eyes staring up at him.

"You were crying last night," Dean says, even as he knows it wasn't really Castiel who was crying.

"I won't do it again," the boy promises with a smile, rolls away and stretches his body out on the bed. "Fuck me, Dean? Fuck me so I can see you?"

Dean wants to say no, just for a moment. Then he's reaching for the bottle of lube by the alarm clock. He puts his fingers inside the boy, worships him from the inside out and bends down to suck on the boy's smooth, silky flesh. "Forgive me," he whispers when he pushes in, sheathing his cock in beautiful, familiar heat.

"Forgive me," he says when Castiel's legs wrap around him, when the boy's hands clutch at him.

When he tries to say it again all that comes out is a groan, a choked off noise countered by Castiel's panting and breathy whispers of "yes, more" and "please" and "father". Dean comes too soon, lowers himself down on top of Castiel until the boy's body is completely covered by his and Dean is panting against the side of his face.

"You're doing so well," Castiel murmurs into his ear. "So good for me. You love me so much it hurts sometimes, doesn't it?"

"I think you're a demon," Dean says softly, afraid to look into the boy's eyes in case he sees black instead of blue, "you came to tempt me from my path, to make sure that there's no means of salvation left for me."

"You'll say yes when you get to hell, won't you?"

"I'll do anything for you."

Castiel smiles at him, wraps his arms around Dean's neck and tells him; "It's ok. I'll never make you do anything you don't want to."

-

* * *

-

One move and two jobs later and Dean celebrates what should have been Castiel's fourteenth birthday. The thirteenth had been lost in the early confusion of figuring out how to get by with a child that wasn't his and not arouse any suspicions. Castiel hasn't aged a bit since Dean first saw him, but age is only a number and numbers are like anniversaries.

He brings home a small cake that afternoon and finds Castiel lying on his stomach on the living room floor, homework that he's done at least twice before being ignored in favour of a sleazy talk show on TV.

"We could make this show's producer vomit in disgust," Castiel murmurs without looking at him.

"I bought a chocolate cake," Dean replies, placing the small confection on the kitchen table where it won't be disturbed. He doesn't want to think about how other people would perceive them - it always makes him uncomfortable and leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

But, precocious and wilful as ever, Castiel persists. "An ordained catholic priest and a twelve year old boy, travelling slowly around the country so nobody finds out that they're fucking. What would you do if someone found out about us, Dean?"

"We move because you don't age," Dean corrects, not wanting to think about how he's technically still a priest even after everything he's done with this boy. "Not because we're sleeping together."

"But if someone did find out about us," Castiel presses, looking up at Dean as he stands, "what would you do?"

"... I don't know."

"You wouldn't let them take me away, would you?"

He has no answer for that, but Castiel hugs him anyway, pressing his face against Dean's chest. It's just a measure of how used to deflection Dean is getting that he asks softly; "Do you want icecream with your cake?"

He doesn't find out about the body in the bathroom until after dinner. There's no blood, only a shocked, terrified look on the woman's face. After a moment or two Dean recognises the woman as Castiel's teacher. He gags, throwing up in the sink, and when he looks up next he can see Castiel through the mirror, the boy standing in the doorway with a sober look on his face.

"She found out," he says softly.

Dean feels cold all over. He asks through the foul taste in his mouth, half-imagining that the words themselves are the source of the bad taste; "What did you do?"

"She never liked me," Castiel protests, starting to look scared - like he thinks Dean is going to walk away or go to the police. "She thought there was something strange about me. She followed me home and told me she knew who you were, that she'd looked your name up and you didn't have any children. Please, father - Dean..."

Deep down he knows it's manipulation, but he doesn't care. Dean would rather do this than lose Castiel, he's given too much of himself to Castiel already. In some ways this next step feels inevitable. The priest turns around, looking at Castiel without the barrier or the mirror between them. "What do I do?"

"We have to get rid of her, and her car."

"Her car...?" He hadn't noticed a car.

"It's the blue one, the one parked on the side of the road." Castiel comes forward and takes one of Dean's hands in his own. "We need to put her in the car and drive it out of town, then burn everything so nobody will ever know who did it. Can you do that?"

Dean leaves Castiel at home when he drives the car out of town. He leaves the woman in the back seat, opens all of the car windows to let the air in, and pours gasoline over the seats. He sets fire to the body and walks away with the smell of smoke chasing him. It takes him an hour to get close enough to town to flag down a cab, he makes the driver stop outside a liquor store and buys himself a bottle of bourbon. He doesn't wait until he gets home to start drinking.

"Rough day?" The cab driver asks.

"You have no idea," Dean replies, alcohol and smoke burning his throat. He gives the driver the largest note he has and tells him to keep the change; Walks into the house with the open bottle in his hand and drinks until he can't see straight anymore only to find himself throwing up in the bathroom as Castiel strokes the back of his neck.

"It gets easier," Castiel promises.

He's right. It gets easier and easier. Some part of Dean suspects that Castiel is manipulating him like this on purpose, replacing guilt with innocent smiles and kisses from soft, plush lips.

-

* * *

-

Looking back Dean isn't at all amazed that his slow slide led him here. He drinks regularly now, never enough to get truly drunk, but enough to give him a pleasant buzz in the evenings while he sits on the couch with Castiel and fondles the boy through his pants. He lies with an ease that no longer shocks himself when people ask what their relation is or what happened to Castiel's old school records.

It's been years now. Castiel should be sixteen, but true to his word he hasn't aged a day. Dean had long ago thrown out his old phone, had stopped using his real last name when he applied for work or at the real-estate agencies he rented houses from. They had moved several times, always during the school holidays in the summer. He let Castiel pick where they went, and they spent a year in the sun or the rain depending on the boy's whim.

Dean didn't realise how badly he'd lost track of where exactly they were until one sunny tuesday afternoon, walking down a cafe-lined street with Castiel - the boy still in his school uniform. He's smiling at the boy, listening to him talk about reading satirical Russian literature under his desk, when a single word causes him to stop dead in his tracks.

"Dean?"

The former priest looks up to see a tall, familiar-faced man staring at him in disbelief. It takes him a moment to recognise the man, and when he does his stomach drops. He hadn't realised they were so close. "Sam."

"Dean!" Sam looked shocked, stunned like he'd just been hit square in the face. "Dean, what happened to you? Where have you been? Dad said you left the parish and just disappeared, nobody's heard from you for years..." As if slowly pulled there by some kind of magnetic force Sam's gaze slid from Dean's face to the boy standing next to him. "Uh..."

"You're Dean's brother," Castiel said, looking up (and up, and up) at Sam with a guarded look on his face. It was a look that Dean had never seen before. "He told me about you."

"... Dean?"

It wasn't an accusation, not yet. Dean could feel the lies rolling off his tongue, disconnected from the part of him that felt sick at the thought of Sam discovering the truth. "Sam, this is Castiel. We're part of that 'big brother' program they've got going on down at the youth hall. Castiel is a ward of the state -"

"My parents are dead," Castiel interrupted, staring right at Sam. "My foster parents don't have time for me so they foisted me off on the first 'program' they could find, saying it would be good for me. I like Dean. I wish I could live with him instead."

"We should catch up," Sam suggested, pulling out his phone. "What's your number?"

Dean reached into the pocket of his jeans, intending to give Sam a fake number, but Castiel rattled off the numbed for his mobile phone before Dean could say a word. "Great," Dean said when Sam had his number saved, not sure what the hell the boy was playing at this time. "Give me a call later tonight. Listen, I have to get Castiel back home. We can catch up some other time, right?"

He leaves Sam standing there on the sidewalk before his brother can say another word.

"What the hell was that about?" Dean demands when they're safe in the car, gripping the steering wheel too tight as he drives them back home. "Why did you give him my real number?"

"We're not ready to move again," Castiel replies, placing one of his soft, smooth hands on Dean's thigh. "Not as quickly as it would take him to find you if he wanted to. Your brother is a lawyer, he probably knows people who can do him favours."

"Sam is a smart man. He'll catch on pretty quick if he thinks something is going on."

"It's ok."

"I really hope you know what you're doing."

Castiel smiles at him and leans over to press a kiss to Dean's cheek. "I always know what I'm doing."

Sam doesn't call that evening and Dean spends a fretful, sleepless night just lying in bed with his arms around Castiel. He thinks about what he'd do just to keep the boy close, to see his smile every day and feel his body pressed tight against his own. Meanwhile Castiel just lies there, angelic in the dim light, young and beautiful and worth every shred of Dean's tattered soul.


	3. Chapter 3

It takes two full days for the other shoe to drop.

Dean and Castiel are sitting at the dinner table. The scene is wholesome, normal, and a perfect reflection of how Dean sees his relationship with the boy. He's smiling at the boy, telling him about his day at the shop he works in, when he's interrupted by a sudden pounding on the front door.

He puts his knife and fork down with a sigh and stands. "Whoever heard of someone knocking on the door at this hour?" he mutters to himself.

The second he unlocks the door Sam bursts into the house, pushing Dean aside. He looks around, striding through into the dining room and stopping dead when he sees Castiel still sitting at the table, cutting his steak into bite-sized pieces. Castiel stops and looks back at Sam warily, expectantly.

"He doesn't exist," Sam says, looking back at Dean as he points at the boy. "And don't try and bullshit me Dean, because I know you aren't registered with any community or volunteer groups. There are no boys of his age and description listed in any of the foster homes in this county, in fact, there are no boys named 'Castiel' in the entirety of the United States. No birth certificates, no registered immigrants, no records whatsoever! Except at one school, where 'Castiel Winchester' is currently enrolled. So I called dad back in Lawrence and asked him to look through the church records and do you know what he found? One name, only this time it's 'Castiel Novak', written there clear as day with the rest of the boys choir from four years ago. Just before you left."

Dean was silent. He had no defence, nothing he could say.

"Someone has done their homework," Castiel pipes up, sounding much calmer than Dean was feeling. "I suppose you tried looking up my parents and found that the Novaks never had any children."

"Dean," Sam says, ignoring the boy, "tell me you didn't leave the church because you kidnapped an eight year old boy."

"Twelve, Sam." Dean says, his voice coming out rougher than usual. "The boys choir is for ages ten to fourteen. And I never left the church."

"You left your job!"

"I'm still a priest."

"Jesus, Dean! You're delusional." Sam runs a hand through his hair, tugging on the strands between his fingers so that they stick up in all directions. "Look, it's alright. We can still sort this out. I looked it up, and the maximum sentence for kidnapping isn't that bad - if you get a good defence you'd only serve ten years before parole - worst case scenario. That's still plenty of time to get on with your life afterwards. If you give yourself up... Dean, if you give yourself up it can only help your case."

"No, Sam."

"Dean." It's Castiel who speaks, pushing himself away from the table and coming to slip one of his hands into Dean's own. The boy squeezes Dean's fingers, strokes his fingertips over Dean's palm, and smiles up at him. "I'll handle this." The smile fades from Castiel's face as he looks at Sam instead. Dean knows, without needing to look, that the boy's eyes have turned dark, black without iris or whites. "If you take him away from me, Sam Winchester, I will kill you."

Sam looks uneasy, his eyes flicking between Castiel's stoic, black-eyed gaze and Dean's stony face. "Dean...?"

"I'll kill anyone you send," Castiel continues, his voice somehow just a little mocking, "police, social workers. I'm a good boy for Dean, Sam. I'm only good because he takes care of me so well. You don't want to know what I could do if I was bad."

"Just go home, Sam."

Sam is staring, looking back and forth between them like he's on the verge of some kind of terrible epiphany. Dean knows he'll get there eventually, knows that he's losing his brother... But he'd abandoned his family when he'd left Lawrence, had turned his face from God and embraced his sins. Dean had come to grips with the idea of never seeing Sam or his father again a long time ago.

Castiel wraps his arms around Dean's waist, pressing tight against him. He smirks at Sam, helping the final realisation along with a very unsubtle push. "He fucks me, you know. I want him to. This body feels so good when he's inside me. Dean knows where he's going now, when he gets there I'm going to be there with him to hold him tight."

Sam's catholic upbringing doesn't fail him, despite years of not actively going to church, despite claiming that demons were actually representations of mankind's abstract fears. "Christo," he says, almost choking on the word.

The boy flinches away from the word as if it could physically hurt him. Dean holds him close, stroking the boy's hair soothingly. He doesn't look at his brother as he speaks; "I think you should go now." He doesn't look up until he hears the door close.

The rest of the evening passes with a terse silence. It's not until Dean turns off the light and slips into bed, Castiel already lying there under the covers, that either of them says anything.

"I meant what I told your brother," Castiel tells him, rolling onto his side and propping himself up so he can look down at Dean's face in the dark. He sounds odd, the tone of his voice weighing heavier than usual. "I'll hold you, Dean. I'll look after you."

"Once I'm in hell," Dean answers, shifting to let Castiel mould against his side, "once I've said yes."

"Dean..."

"Don't." Dean gropes for Castiel's mouth with his own, presses his lips against the boy's and rolls him onto his back. "Just let me fuck you. Let me pretend."

Lithe, slender legs open up for him, letting him press down and grind their still-clothed bodies together. Castiel raises his hands and runs his fingers through Dean's hair, pulling him down for wet, steamy kisses. "I'm not pretending."

"Don't," Dean says, pushing his own boxers down to his thighs. He doesn't want to hear about promises they both know are fake. "Castiel, don't."

"I'm not."

"Please..." Dean silences the boy with more kisses, stretching him open with his fingers and marvelling at how the boy is still so tight, so perfect. Pristine every time, as if he's never been touched before. He lines himself up, pushes slowly until the head of his cock pops inside, swallowed up by the beautiful heat of the body beneath him. Castiel gasps and pants with every push inside. He's honest in his pleasure, honest about this. After four years Dean can tell when the boy is lying.

Afterwards, as he lies naked and sticky under sheets that always need to be washed, Dean sighs. Castiel stretches languidly beside him, then rolls onto his side and curls around a pillow. Dean follows automatically, wrapping an arm around the boy's waist. Short moments later a small, smooth hand lands on top of his.

Dean has forsaken family to lie in the devil's arms.

The house is quiet the next morning, when Dean has one of his rostered days off in the middle of the week and Castiel has gone to school to pretend to be a normal boy, armed with a thick Russian novel that even Dean would have trouble reading through. It's ten o'clock, Dean is drinking hot coffee and watching the morning news when the phone rings.

He answers it with a polite 'hello', assuming that it was either the store asking him to fill in for someone or the school wanting to ask him if he was aware of his son's intelligence.

He hadn't been expecting to hear his brother's voice on the other end of the line.

"Dean, don't hang up."

Dean contemplates doing it anyway, but eventually sighs and asks; "What is it, Sam?"

He can practically hear Sam's crisis of faith, can clearly picture him pacing back and forth just from the noises coming through the phone. "You're living with a demon," Sam says, sounding as if he doesn't quite believe it, "Dean. A real demon."

"You sound shocked," Dean says tiredly. He rubs a hand over his face, leaning back on the couch. "Does this mean you won't be calling child services?"

"Is this why you left the church?" Sam demands. "You left the church because a demon - Jesus Christ - a _demon_ wanted you to?"

"That's a simplified view of things, yeah." Dean winces at the string of cursing that reaches him through the phone, but it wasn't the bad language that was bothering him, it was the tone of shocked disbelief, of fear, in his brother's voice. "Sam. Sammy, listen to me. It's ok. I know what I'm doing. Nobody's getting hurt, ok? As long as I'm looking after him the demon has no interest in anyone else."

"So you're, what, damning yourself for the good of others?"

"Yes." If he weren't already assured a spot in hell by his actions, Dean's lies would have sent him there anyway. "Now listen Sam, because this is important. You can't tell anyone what's going on. You can't tell Dad, you can't tell anyone from the church, not your girlfriend, not even your therapist if you got one. You start talking demons and they'll think you've gone nuts."

"So what do I do?" He imagines Sam running a hand through his hair, pulling on the ends. "I have to do something."

"You do nothing. You forget what you saw and whatever you've dug up and you leave me with my burdens. I'm not dragging you down to hell with me and that's all your interference would do."

"Dean..."

"Call me again and I'll pack up and leave, and doing a nationwide search for 'Winchester' won't help you find me." Dean hangs up before Sam can say anything else. He rolls his head back against the couch cushions and stares at the ceiling for three full minutes before he picks up the phone again and dials the number for Castiel's school. He leaves a message with the administration that there's a family emergency and he'll be coming to pick Castiel up as soon as he can, then finds his wallet and hops straight into his car.

When he arrives at the office Castiel is looking suitably worried, acting just like a preteen boy who's just been told that there's a family emergency and his father is coming to get him. Dean doesn't need to work at it to look serious. He just takes Castiel's hand, thanks the woman behind the admin desk, and takes the boy out to the parking lot.

"What's the emergency, father?" Castiel asks, the fake worry replaced by a small, puzzled frown.

"Get in the car," Dean replies. "We're going to the waffle house and getting icecream sundaes. Then you're sucking me off on the way home."

Castiel slides into the front passenger seat and buckles his seatbelt. He places a hand on Dean's shoulder as the priest starts the car, giving him a sympathetic smile. "You must have had a bad morning."

"Funny how one bad phone call can ruin your whole damn day."

"I'll make it better for you, Dean."

Dean glances at the boy in the passenger seat and smiles at him. "I know, baby. Having you around makes everything better."

-

* * *

-

Castiel was eighteen - or should have been - when he convinced Dean to start preaching again.

"It's important," he says, worming his way onto Dean's lap on the couch. "You need to send a message out to the people."

"What kind of message?" Dean asks, placing his hands on the boy's hips to keep him from squirming and distracting the priest. He didn't need the distractions right now.

"An important message. The kind that millions of people need to hear. The kind you won't be able to send if you go back to small-town churches." Castiel smiles, leans in and puts his arms around Dena's neck and kisses him until his lips are pink and glistening. "You'll have to lie, Dean. Can you do that for me? Can you pretend to be something you're not so that the masses will listen?"

"I pretend all the time, Castiel. What message?"

"Tell them that the apocalypse is coming, that the sixty-six seals are going to break, and Lucifer will be set free upon the world again."

"Am I going to be telling the truth when I say that?" Dean asks, watching Castiel's face closely for any sign of a lie.

The boy gives him a sympathetic smile. "No." He's lying.

Dean thinks it over, his thumbs tracing circles on the boy's skin. Hell, he thinks, why not? Dean, no longer thinking of himself as a priest, unzips the jeans that Castiel is wearing and somehow fits one large hand inside to touch the boy, fingers kneading and stroking and sliding agianst the boy's skin. "Why the fuck not?" He asks aloud, and catches the boy's mouth in a searing kiss. "If I'm going out, I'm going out with a bang."

He's not sure why he associates donning the mantle of priest again as meeting his end. Castiel doesn't correct him, letting the knowledge sit heavy between them as he rocks his hips into Dean's hand, breath coming out in short little gasps against his mouth.

Over the next couple of months Dean pulls Castiel out of school and they set about making the necessary arrangements. Robes, location - complete with a new house that Dean fully intends to default on when the time comes, advertising (which Castiel called, with a wry little smirk 'spin doctoring'), and finally securing the one thing that is guaranteed to make people come. A genuine faith healing franchise.

Castiel sets up the altar in the master bedroom, where guests will never go. He shows Dean what to do, what words to say, to trap the creature that will be doing the dirty work for him. He doesn't lie about this, tells him in explicit terms what will happen when the altar is dismantled. Dean just smiles at the boy, ruffles his hair, and tells him that he knows where he's headed and has done for a long time.

He performs the first healing in a supermarket, and a woman in a wheelchair walks for the first time in thirteen years.

It's easy after that, way too easy. He takes Castiel's advice, gets people hooked with his falsely sincere sermons and his apparent ability to cure any ailment just through touch. By day he become the same smiling, faithful man he'd been before he met the boy. By night he makes the most of the time he has left when he touches the boy, sucks on his skin and worships his body against a backdrop of red wine and clean cotton sheets.

Dean waits until he's approached by a camera crew, just three months later, and readily agrees to let them sit in on one of his sessions. He lets them search through the tent from top to bottom, lets them interview the audience full of hopefuls and true believers, even invites them into his house for tea while Castiel lurks silent in the bedroom.

He waits until he hears them discussing how they can't find anything suspicious, then gives them a show to remember. After healing a man with an inoperable tumour and dooming an innocent soul to die, Dean receives a vision from God. He makes the act as good as only a professional liar can, speaks right into the camera, and disappears out the back before anyone can corner him with questions.

Dean destroys the altar. He burns all of the evidence and replaces it with a clean cloth and a statue of the virgin mother, a well-thumbed bible sitting below her downturned gaze. He sits on the bed then and waits.

Castiel comes first, climbs into his lap and kisses him. Holds him when the reaper comes. "I love you," he whispers into Dean's ear, and the priest can't tell whether it's a lie.

-

* * *

-

It's dark when he wakes up, naked and stretched out on a cold metal slab, his wrists and ankles cuffed in place. Shadows, semi-formless around him, part to reveal a being in the figure of a man who smiles at Dean with pointed teeth and eyes that burn red. "Hello, Dean," the figure says, selecting a long, thin, serrated knife from thin air. "I've been waiting six years for you."

He leans down over Dean, trailing the tip of the serrated blade lightly over Dean's chest. Smiles right into his face. "Are you ready to get off the rack?"

Dean's face twists into a grim smile. He remembers what Castiel had told him, had paid for his answer with six years of sin and bliss. "Yes," he says. And the first seal breaks.


End file.
